Waking Up
by Verdot
Summary: A history through a series of morning afters. So to speak.


The first time that Veld actually woke up with Vincent had really been nothing at all.

Tally always had a strange sense of humor, so giving him and his rookie partner the mission that put them in some gods forsaken steel pipe waiting to see if some deal was going down for a night was her kind of perfect assignment. But Valentine was so ridiculously skinny, and it had been particularly cold, and steel never was the most forgiving of substances. Veld was freezing his ass off too, of course, but he'd learned to suppress any shivers, while his partner practically vibrated.

It was prudent to take off his jacket, grit his teeth, yank his partner closer so they could generate at least a little more heat under it. If the kid kept shivering like that, he was likely going to make noise, damn steel pipe and all. Veld was just glad there were no smartass remarks after it, as any talking could have compromised their position anyway.

Veld only knew that he woke up first, not remembering having fallen asleep, but never quite a good enough sleeper not to wake up at the right kind of noise. Which was fortunate, else he would have missed the exchange and god wouldn't Tally have given him a lecture about falling asleep on the job. But he got the pictures, managing somehow not to wake the rookie, who slept not unlike a corpse, he was so quiet.

After the targets had dispersed, he poked Valentine in his bony ribs and hissed some kind of threat. Kid only opened an eye, told him that he was comfortable and moved off him, handing him back his jacket shortly after.

Veld always wondered just when he _actually_woke up.

* * *

><p>The next most memorable time had been because of a fight.<p>

Veld was oddly used to head trauma, and as his slightly less rookie partner had demonstrated, Valentine was no stranger to getting knocked around either. But what was supposed to be a standard bar fight-some idiot deciding an off-duty Turk was a great target for their frustrations with life and the usual comebacks about their mother-had turned decidedly ugly.

Veld had wished the newer rookies were more Valentine's flavor of chaos at that point, especially when he took something heavy or glass or maybe even both to the head.

He never liked waking up with an immediate dislodge in his memory, but Veld saw in his blurry vision a large navy blue and black blob, which meant that at least he was with another Turk. Something warm and hard-soft was under his head, and a pounding headache was waking up with him.

Bony fingers checked his forehead and his vision finally focused. Valentine's face, marred by several cuts and bruises and the hazy brownness that he was suspecting was the bar's storage room, judging by the smell. And Valentine had propped Veld's head on his lap.

"You look like hell, kid."

"You're the one who went down like a tree and had to get his ass rescued."

He stopped putting in requests for a new partner after that.

* * *

><p>The first true morning after wasn't exactly pleasant.<p>

It had taken Veld a few tries to concede to Vincent's requests to turn fighting-to-fucking-around into properly sleeping together. The fighting part didn't change, though. Just the arrangement afterward. In fact it was a fight about how the hell Vincent had gotten into his apartment, again, without a key or an invitation. The acrobatics later were almost like Vincent was marking territory all over his place, but they were probably just to wear him out.

He had no idea how he made it to the bed at all, frankly.

It had not helped Vincent's case for Veld to wake up without covers, sore as hell everywhere, and to the sound of snoring. His natural response to such offenses was to ask Vincent why the hell he was there in as loud and obnoxious a volume as possible, followed by a few choice Wutain phrases. And Vincent's natural response was to remain cocooned in all his blankets and flip him off.

The elderly neighbor lady down the hall launched a complaint with the landlord about a streaker not ten minutes later, as Veld used the cocoon to launch Vincent out into the hall. He didn't tolerant insubordination normally, but before breakfast was simply right out.

* * *

><p>When they reached an equilibrium of sorts, Veld sometimes liked to pretend he was asleep so Vincent could believe he'd woken first. But outside of head injury or offensive amounts of alcohol, no one <em>really<em>woke up nearly as early or as easily as Veld Dragoon did.

Still, he had to give the kid something.

* * *

><p>He knew that he'd stayed away too long, maybe, when Vincent stopped asking for breakfast when he stayed over.<p>

Veld could probably blame it on the biological imperative, or preconditioned shame against deviation. He could blame it on a lot of things why he found himself waking in other beds, with other people. It wasn't as if he hid it; there had been no promises, only concessions, but even still it was strange to see his partner wake up, get dressed, and simply leave.

Valentine always did take a while to actually listen to anything, it seemed.

* * *

><p>The first last time was simply a formality.<p>

A back against Veld's back, just a little cold despite the body heat being exchanged, probably because he'd worn a shirt. Vincent had stayed over simply because his apartment was closer to the train station, and he had to be up quite early to catch the one to Nibelheim. The sun was starting to come up, but it was grey and dingy, just as bad as below the plate. They were only half above it, really, in a way.

When the back moved, Veld didn't pretend like he was asleep, but he didn't start to move either, just listened as his partner put on the rest of the suit in the half-dark. He'd given him this mission, and al the words were spent about it, like casings laying on the floor.

But Vincent had stopped, and Veld's eyes couldn't tell if he was really looking at him or not.

"Take me to the station, Veld."

His first instinct was to refuse-it wasn't like he had a car, only company cars on certain missions-but he rose anyway, even putting on that new tie that he'd been asking for from Supply for a while.

Neither of them left the apartment with any breakfast, or any more words.

* * *

><p>When he woke up on the couch in the lounge with a bottle in one hand, and a small, glossy picture in the other, Veld could only conclude two things. Particularly once he looked at the individuals in the picture.<p>

First, he needed to drink less. And second, Hojo sure knew how to ruin his little anniversaries with his sense of humor.

* * *

><p>The second last time, Veld had really thought he'd been awake.<p>

Vincent had looked at him sleepily from a coffin-a _coffin_of all morbidfuck places-and talked like he'd goddamn lost his mind. But Veld had to wake up to the fact that maybe some people died, but only stayed mostly dead.

And he liked him better when he didn't talk so damn much about useless things.

* * *

><p>The sunlight filtered in through the window in the bedroom of his house, letting him know that he'd slept late again. Edge was so full of sunlight, compared to what Midgar had been. It was almost annoying. A light breeze moved his curtains like a ghost.<p>

Veld felt a cold feeling in his stomach as he realized that window had been closed when he went to sleep.

He slowly began to reach for the gun under his bed when he saw the glint of something gold. The cold feeling in his stomach was a claw _on_his stomach. Veld opened his eyes further to see a cast off tattered red cape on his chair. And that was breath-faint, but breath-on the back of his neck, assuring that he wasn't just hallucinating.

"...Valentine?"

"You're a hard man to find when you're pouting. We have to talk."

Pancakes. Yes, he would make pancakes for breakfast.


End file.
